I have had to resort to using the leash when training Chester in his place again. Yesterday, no matter how short a time I made it, every time I came back in he was off the bed. With the leash he remained on it.

This morning I used the leash, and he was standing the first few times I came back in — but the last time I had success; he was laying down. I mixed things up a bit in the bathroom, and had him stay on his place while I changed. Then he stayed — laying down! — while I walked to the door and stood for one minute.

The aim is to get him to stay in place for 15 minutes, without a leash? I just don’t see how that will ever be possible — I can barely get him to stay for a minute!

I had an interesting encounter at the farmer’s market this weekend. A man stopped me to ask if Chester’s harness was a “no-pull harness”, because he’d never seen one like that — it’s an all-in-one step in harness, meaning the leash is part of the harness.

I replied that no, I just like not having to find the leash. So he started talking about how harnesses invite dogs to pull, and how he helped a woman with a rottweiler who was almost dragging her off her feet. He said just a few corrections and that dog walked perfectly nicely without pulling.

I said that Chester doesn’t pull a lot, although he sure wasn’t listening a whole lot at the farmer’s market (too many cool things to smell — we’re working on it), and that I prefer a harness since small dogs are prone to tracheal collapse.

His reply was that it shouldn’t matter. The implication being that if he was properly trained, he wouldn’t pull at all, collar or no collar.

I prefer positive training methods. I sure wouldn’t want someone to put a collar and leash on me & then give me a “correction”, why would I do that to my dog? I want a willing partner, a dog that stays with me because he chooses to do so — because when he’s near me, good things happen.

People who use corrections often boast about how quickly the dog can be trained. But at what cost? Isn’t it more humane to use positive methods, even if they sometimes take longer? It probably boils down to the rush we Americans seem to be perpetually in — we want everything, and we want it now.

Most people are pretty impressed by how well trained Chester is. He’s not perfect, by any means — he still sometimes jumps on people, he has selective hearing in high distraction environments, and his recall is not 100%. But it’s the journey, not the destination, as they say. I just have to remind myself of that when I’m out there at 9 pm waiting for something to happen, and he just sits there looking up at me like he never heard the word “pee” in his life.

I think I’ve definitely established that Chester is fine going into the bathroom at any time other than around noontime. No problems at all this evening — and he did much better staying, although he was pretty tired and I worked on stays with me inside.

I had him stay in the bathroom while I took a shower, and he definitely did not like that.

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